Review of Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) by Dafster — 13 Feb 2020

Not the sort of movie that's likely to score well with critics (for some reason, crtics often can't seem to enjoy anything that's remotely vanilla; if it's not profound, it's no good apparently), but in my opinion, it was a blast. It's weird to think now that when the trailer first launched soon after Detective Pikachu's, it very clearly paled in comparison and people were convinced that Pokémon would come out on top. Since the redesign though, Sonic's done a complete 180 and after seeing it, I am happy to say this is frankly the best video-game-adapted movie ever.

Something that became apparent to me early on was how endearing and fun not just Sonic, but every character was in their own way, including Tom and Maddie. The real show-stealer however is Jim Carrey as Robotnik. They give a bit of a backstory for his personality, and Carrey plays up the absurdity of this personality to silly extremes, which made for some of the film's highlight scenes.

Sonic is also a very likeable character, despite having many jokes and quips that often don't land. Ben Schwartz does a perfect voice for him however, and Sonic's super speed makes for some great visual gags. There is one speed-related gag in particular part way through the film that made for one of the coolest comedy action sequences I've seen in recent memory; from a visual standpoint, it might even turn out to be one of my favorite sequences from a movie this year, even if it's not entirely original.

As far as flaws go, I'd say there are mainly two. Firstly, Sonic's whole universe and it's mechanics (such as rings, the function they play, Sonic's speed, his back story etc) is a LOT to fit into a film that's trying to be fairly straightforward. Because of this, they don't really do a great deal to explain anything too much - they'll give you an explanation for what rings do for example, but won't explain why and just sort of expect you to accept this because it's in the games. This example didn't bother me too much, but there was another instance regarding Sonic's backstory that I thought was a little unecessary - it was just some extra lore that was never established in the games that felt a little unecessary. I understand the function it played on the overaching story, but it also bothered to introduce us to a new character who we only ever see once, and I just felt that was a bit of a waste. These issues however were only minor and didn't hinder the experience for me too much.

Easily the bigger issue however was the film's runtime - although the film isn't trying to be a huge epic, it still could've benefited from an extended runtime for some more detailed character and plot development. Unfortunately the message that the film's trying to bring up about "loneliness" really didn't have much of an effect on me, which was likely due to the short runtime not leaving enough room to weave any kind of profound moral messaging. I also think that the climax of the film could've felt far more epic had there been a greater buildup of ups and downs before that moment.

Ultimately though, Sonic the Hedgehog is not only a good video game to film adaption, it's a GOOD MOVIE. If you're a Sonic fan, you'll enjoy it a lot and if you're not, you'll still have a lot of fun with the zany plot and characters. Yes, it's a fairly straightforward, vanilla plot but this was all this movie needed.